Weird Nostalgia

This was going to be a Raindrops on Roses post, but I decided against that for a couple reasons. First, I knew what theme I wanted for my movie/game/book set to be, and I knew that what I wanted to talk about here didn’t mesh with that at all. And second, I’m not actually sure I remember a lot of what I want to talk about at all. Which is kind of fitting, given that what I want to talk about is Neal Shusterman’s The Schwa was Here.

Like, I remember these moments, the set pieces as it were. There’s a kid who is functionally invisible, you see. Your brain can see and hear him, it just tends not to. And I remember the montage of moments as the people who do start noticing him test the limits of his power (for example, he gets through 2006-era airport security until he also tries taking a metal bar with him). But I don’t remember the actual characters at all. The summaries I could find online say this kid’s friends start taking advantage of him, and I have no idea how true that is.

But I also remember liking it despite knowing nothing about the plot. I remember really appreciating the third act especially as everyone learns valuable life lessons and our main characters find friends they never thought they would (if you’re offended at spoilers for a twelve-year-old book feel free to not write anything in the comments). So I’m in this weird position of having fond memories of no memories at all.

I had a similar reaction recently to the movie Annihilation (2018). I mentioned being a little low on the movie, but when asked why, I struggled to remember my initial reaction. When I did respond, it was mostly remembering what I had said before than actually remembering examples from the movie.

The common thread between these two examples, I think, is frequency and distance in time. I’ve only ever read The Schwa was Here once about eleven years ago. I only saw Annihilation once back in February. By comparison, I remember a lot about Madeline’s Madeline or The War of the Worlds because of how recently I’ve seen them, and I remember a lot about Upstream Color or The Phantom Tollbooth because of how often I rewatched or reread them. Which I imagine is not a new development in terms of understanding how memory works, but it seemed interesting in this context with how much media I consume.

-F